The Last Gentleman Adventurer: Coming of Age in the Arctic.

Maurice, Edward Beauclerk. Foreword by Lawrence Millman. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

Delightful book about an HBC agent who at 20 was assigned alone to Pangnirtung and Frobisher Bay where he successfully assimilated to Inuit culture.

Report on Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of 1883.

Garlington, Ernest A. Washington: Signal Office, 1883. Signal Office Notes No. 10, re the Yantic and Porteus debacle.
  • 1883 Lady Franklin Bay Relief Expedition.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

p. 25-7: Scientific Outfit of the Lady Franklin Bay Relief Expedition of 1883. Memorandum B, includes the following items:

Mark Well the Whale! Long Island Ships to Distant Seas.

Schmitt, Frederick P. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1971.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

A rather light bit of local history re Cold Spring Harbor and whaling out of Long Island, incl. Sag Harbor, and descriptions of voyages and disasters.

Life Aboard: The Journals of William N. and George F. Smith.

Smith, William N. and George F. Edited by Alan D. McNairn. (Saint John, CAN: NBM Publications, 1988.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

Diaries of typical 19th-century voyages by New Brunswick ships to all over the world, usually carrying timber. Nothing polar about it (mostly St John to Liverpool), but an interesting example of a seaman’s journals.

A Voyage Around the World 1826-1829.

Litke, Frederic. Edited by Richard A. Pierce. (Kingston, ONT: Limestone Press, 1987).
  • 1826-29 Russian Exploring Expedition (aboard Veniamin).
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Trip on Seniavin, a Russian ship, to survey coasts of Kamchatka, the Okhotsk Sea, and the Shanter Islands. Traveled from Kronstadt to Portsmouth, Rio, Cape Horn, Valparaiso, Sitka, & Kamchatka. Stopped in Sitka to observe the Russian colonies there under the Russian-American Company in New Archangel. Baron Wrangell was governor and the fort itself had been rebuilt after being destroyed by the Americans:

Saga of the White Horizon.

Olsen, Magnus L. Lymington, UK: Nautical Publishing Company, 1972.
  • 1901-04 Swedish Antarctic Expedition (Otto Nordenskjöld).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

Olsen was a Norwegian aviator who participated in the Ellsworth/ Trans-Antarctic/Polar Star expedition between 1933 and 1936 as support on the three attempts to make the trip. On one occasion, during the later portion of these trips, the Wyatt Earp anchored at Snow Hill Island and the men visited the place where Otto Nordenskjöld wintered and built a winter house over thirty years earlier.

Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger, being an Account of Various Observations Made during the Voyage of H.M.S. “Challenger”… 1872-1876.

Moseley, Henry N. London: Macmillan, 1879.
  • 1872-76 Challenger Expedition of Natural History (George Nares and Frank Thompson).
  • Global Circumnavigations and Cape Horn Transits.
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

Moseley views most things from the viewpoint of a naturalist but brings a sympathetic humanity to everything he observes. One would have been fortunate to travel on the Challenger with him.

[Review]. “Account of the Proceedings of H. M. S. Enterprise from Behring Strait to Cambridge Bay.” By Capt. R. Collinson.

Back, George. Journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London 25 (1855) p. 194-206.
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

The Enterprise and the Investigator set sail together in 1850 to establish the North Pacific arm of the Franklin Search, hoping to meet the by-then missing Franklin as he emerged from the Northwest Passage. It was not to be: the ships were separated after successfully navigating the straights of Magellan only to be met by high seas that separated them forever. This paper was communicated to the RGS by Sir George Back, from Captain Collinson of the Enterprise.

Labrador: Its Discovery, Exploration, and Development.

Gosling, William Gilbert. New York: John Lane, 1911.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. 36: A book called the Chronicles of Eusebius, published by Henry Estienne in Paris, in 1512, describes seven savages who had been brought to Rouen from the country called Terre Neuve. There can be no doubt that the French fishermen, particularly from Normandy and Brittany, greatly preponderated in the fisheries of Newfoundland and Labrador during the sixteenth century. The New Interlude, 1517, to be quoted fully later, laments that while the English were neglecting the countries discovered by them, “full a hundred sail,” of the French loaded with fish there every year. While some allowance must be made for poetic licence, it was no doubt mainly correct. John Rut encountered eleven Norman vessels in the harbour of St. John’s in August, 1527, and the St. Malòins showed by their opposition to Jacques Cartier in 1533 that they carried on a regular fishery in the Straits of Belle Isle, and probably in the Gulf of St. Lawrence as well. In Edward VI’s Journal of his reign, he mentions that the French Ambassador informed him that the Emperor of Spain “had stayed certain French ships going fishing to Newfoundland.”

Explorations in the Far North: Being the Report of an Expedition under the Auspices of the University of Iowa during the Years 1892, ’93, and ’94.

Russell, Frank. Iowa City, IA: The University, 1898 [AMS Press reprint 1986].
  • 1892-94 US University of Iowa Expedition to Far North.
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

This expedition was more ethnographic than geographic, dealing with Cree, Athabaskan, as well as natural history of the Mackenzie region, and venturing as far as Herschel and Wrangel.

The Retrospect; Or, Review of Providential Mercies

Marks, Richard. [pseud. Aliqius.]. : with Anecdotes of Various Characters. From the Seventeenth London Edition. New York: Robert Carter, 1841.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

I know almost nothing about this book, its author, his ship, his pseudonym, or the attribution to him. My guess is he was a British Naval officer, possibly even a chaplain of firm pious and dogmatic conventions. He did resign from the Navy to take orders, presumably in the Anglican Church. This work is part of the genre of hortatory narratives of damnation, salvation, and the workings of providence. Although they grow tedious in time, although possibly inspirational to some, I’ve given a couple of longer narratives here to give the full flavor of the genre. I leave further research to others.

Karluk: the Great Untold Story of Arctic Exploration. [1913-1916]

McKinlay, William Laird. Foreword by Magnus Magnusson. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1976.
  • 1913-16 Canadian Arctic Expedition (Led by Stefansson with Captain Bob Bartlett commanding the Karluk).
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

p. 36, at sea in Karluk: During the day a great deal of time was spent reading in our bunks, since there was not a single comfortable chair on board, except for those in Stefansson’s cabin, which was now shared by Captain Bartlett and Hadley.